Changing Perspectives of Judicial Reforms in India: A Critical Analysis

Abstract

Abstract Judicial reforms is the need of an hour as its backlogs in India stand at more than 50 million pending cases. The approach to judicial reforms has taken a different course in the past ten years. Previously the idea was to appoint more judges and build more courts in line with the backlog. Now according to the official vision, the essence of judicial reforms has turned into the process design, i.e., what should happen with the cases that enter the system, what will happen with them while in the system and is there a need for the majority of cases to be there. This research work discusses the evolution of the issue and its institutional implications. At present, there are three types of judicial reforms in India. First, there are technological reforms with the e-Courts Mission Mode Project, National Judicial Data Grid and Interoperable Criminal Justice System projects making the delays measurable. The second type of reforms is structural and is aim mostly at the Supreme Court with its newly agreed strength and the proposal to establish All India Judicial Service remaining unimplemented. The last type of reforms is aim at diversion of litigation. This issue presented is that we are talking about throughput and not about intake here. The Supreme Court’s jurisdiction under Article 136 is indeed unlimited; however, the district court, which is the one with most cases pending, has received the least attention from the reform efforts. At the same time, the appointment of the judges is still defined by the system that is known to be lacking transparency, according to the Supreme Court itself. Trying to reform disposal without attention to intake, allocation of resources and appointing will not allow closing the gap, which is so big.